I’m in downtown Providence with a task force that goes out each night to find shelter for the homeless. Their first case makes me wonder why they bother...

I’m in downtown Providence with a task force that goes out each night to find shelter for the homeless. Their first case makes me wonder why they bother.

It’s a woman in a wheelchair in Kennedy Plaza, and she refuses help.

She’s 53, overweight, says she has MS and spends nights in the tunnels between the old and new downtown.

I ask why she doesn’t go to a shelter. The task force just offered to get her into one.

She tells me shelters won’t take her because she’s handicapped.

It sounds like an unjust hole in the system, but I’m taken aside and told the real story. Shelters require you to meet with a caseworker. The woman refuses. They’ve worked with her before — she pops up in different places and always refuses.

So I look at Jimmy Sullivan, who’s on the team, and ask why he bothers.

“You have to keep trying,” he says.

“But she refuses help,” I say. “Why not walk away?”

“Never,” says Sullivan. “My heart won’t let me.”

I didn’t know there was a team like this, but found out after writing a column some people called insensitive.

I wrote that I keep my window rolled up when I drive past roadside panhandlers.

Many readers agreed, while others said I was picking on the helpless.

Perhaps the most interesting response came from a man named John Freitas.

He said most roadside panhandlers aren’t homeless. They make money that way and go back to apartments.

How did he know?

Because, he said, he knows who the homeless are and aren’t. When he told me how, I decided to make the rounds with him.

His group is called the R.I. Homeless Advocacy Project — an all-volunteer street SWAT team. They are usually a half-dozen each night, sometimes with students along to help.

Nearby, team members are also talking with a young woman, 24, named Nicole McFarlane, who talks about mental issues, problems with family, and that things just fell apart with a boyfriend she was staying with, so she’s out here now.

It’s warm out, and neither Nicole nor Foxx want to go into shelters.

The volunteers give them cards. Call, they say, if you need us. Then they make notes to work on services for the two.

Frank Nolan, 55, a volunteer who’s also working to open a shelter at St. Edward Church on Branch Avenue in Providence, says housing’s a huge problem. Getting people into rooms can help break the cycle. But there are few subsidized units and thousands of people — both homeless and working — need them.

We walk into Burnside Park and come across a young couple on the grass. The woman, Giana, says she’s 24 and lost her place when her roommate was arrested for robbery. The young man, Don, about the same age, says there’s no room for her where he lives, and shelters don’t let couples stay together. He won’t leave her alone, so they’re homeless together.

I ask Giana how she ended up like this — she’s attractive and in good shape.

She tells me something surprising.

She says she has a brain injury from being an Iraq vet.

She holds back her last name, so I ask questions to see if it’s credible.

“I was in the Army,” she says, “82{+n}{+d} Airborne — in 2008 and 2009.” She hit her head in a parachute jump in Al Asad. She was trained at Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri and her rank was E4 in Ammunition Supply.

Can’t veterans groups help?

She says she went through Operation Stand Down for homeless vets, and they did put her up, but she had family stay with her, which is against the rules, so she burned that bridge.

John Freitas, the leader, gives her a card to call, and they make notes to see what else they can do for Giana.

We move on, through the ice-rink tunnel, looking for more.

Jimmy Sullivan says he’s a full-time outreach worker with Riverwood Mental Health out of Newport and joins the team only on occasion. He says he has a master’s from John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York. He knows many homeless folks who work jobs — often 30 or so hours a week minimum wage at places like grocery stores — and afterward, they walk to shelters because they can’t afford housing.

“These guys,” he says of the team, “are my heroes because they put it out there every night. It’s dangerous. They’re sometimes out at 1 a.m.”

I ask how that works, and he says police sometimes call asking if they can pick up homeless who are outdoors at that hour in bad weather.

And they go? At 2 a.m.?

“Every time,” says Frank Nolan.

So I ask again what could possibly drive them to do that as volunteers?

And at last I get the answer.

“Because I was on a park bench, too,” says John Freitas.

He explains he has a syndrome that makes him pass out, so he can’t easily work.

“We’ve all been there,” adds Jimmy Sullivan.

Didn’t he say he has a master’s degree?

He nods.

“In my 20s,” he says, “it was alcoholism. That was me. Nobody else to blame there.”

Barbara Kalil, 55, is the only female team member. She says she and Freitas are a couple now. She lost her job as a nurse and couldn’t get benefits before running out of resources. She says she struggles with health and psychological issues.

It happened to Frank Nolan four years ago.

“I thought I was Superman,” he says. “No health insurance.”

Then he had a burst appendix that cost him $30,000 and working retail, he couldn’t afford a place.

“I’ve been to hell and got myself out of hell,” says Nolan. “I don’t want to forget where I came from.”

“We’re paying it forward,” says Jimmy Sullivan.

There’s still one thing I don’t understand. Some of these folks seem so resistant. What’s the payoff?

“Because,” says Sullivan, “you might fail with the same person 5 times, 10 times — they’re even mad at you. ‘You again?’ But you keep at it … ”

“ … And then one night …” says John, and Barbara finishes the sentence.

“… something clicks. And they’re ready for help.”

“And you’ve taken one more person off the street,” says Sullivan.

“We’re living proof it can happen,” says Freitas.

We’ve been out over an hour, and I am tired and hoping they are done.

They aren’t. They still have ground to cover, John says, and an hour to go.